{"id":85011,"date":"2017-03-29T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-29T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/?p=85011"},"modified":"2017-03-29T09:13:01","modified_gmt":"2017-03-29T08:13:01","slug":"trend-nobody-talking-yet-email-content-automation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/email-marketing\/behavioural-email-marketing\/trend-nobody-talking-yet-email-content-automation\/","title":{"rendered":"The trend nobody is talking about yet: Email content automation"},"content":{"rendered":"

1 to 1 dynamic content personalisation is the future of email marketing<\/h2>\n

I am a big fan of automation, a very big fan. Whenever you can, automate part of your email marketing process. While delivering timely, personalized and relevant content, automation is a big step forward in email marketing maturity of any program. So, the next big thing is Email Content Automation<\/strong>. Few email marketers are currently using it but it\u2019s about to be the hottest trend \u2013 and a trend that\u2019s here to stay.<\/p>\n

Realistically a lot of production time goes into curating, copy-pasting and sorting content. Then there\u2019s compliance and the multiple people who have to give their stamp of approval, checking details they shouldn\u2019t be worrying about. It can take all your time just to manage and get \u201cbusiness as usual\u201d email out of the door. Often that is a huge waste of creative power, time and resources. Wouldn\u2019t it be great if your (standard) email program could literally run by itself? Set it up once and watch the positive results roll in with very little management.<\/p>\n

What is Email Content Automation?<\/h3>\n

When we talk about \u2018Marketing Automation\u2019, the first thing that comes to mind is \"traditional\" marketing automation software<\/a>. As in setting up campaigns, lead scoring and grading, and triggered campaigns. But where does the actual email content fit with this? With Email Content Automation you can pull content, products, and information from your site, database or feed directly into an email automatically. Automating content in this way removes the need to manually copy-paste, format, check and update. Not only is this a great timesaver for small email programs, it\u2019s a lifesaver for large enterprises who operate at scale.<\/p>\n

For instance, think about a bi-weekly email that contains \u2018new in\u2019 products. How much time would it take you to manually source the 8 latest products, copy-paste, test and get approval for this email? Building two emails that contain new in products can take a significant amount of time if approached on per email build basis. It is now possible to use a new feed to fully automate emails of this type which saves a significant amount of time which can be spent strategizing or improving other emails. For example, the time saved could be used to test designs of these \u2018new in\u2019 emails.<\/p>\n

Making it personal, highly personal.<\/h3>\n

Dustin, a re-seller of IT products and services in the Nordics, automate email content to show each individual recipient highly personalized products, specific to their individual browse behaviour. With Content Automation it is no longer necessary for Dustin to insert products manually, segment or split send categories for different target groups, for example B2B and B2C groups. From one email, B2B customers will receive the exact products they have browsed with the B2B price, B2C customers will receive the exact products they have browsed with B2C pricing, all from one send. This has significantly reduced email build and creation time and has enabled Dustin to send email that is truly personalised at a 1-2-1 individual recipient level.<\/p>\n

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How does this work?<\/h3>\n

Dustin connected a live API in the Kickdynamic UI and designed a real-time image template using Kickdynamic<\/a>. At the\u00a0time of send, a user ID & sendout ID is merged into a \u201clive Tag\u201d. This fetches the latest product recommendations for each customer. Every time the email is opened, the product information is updated. This way the recipient always sees the latest price and discount information. Read more here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Personal and up-to-date offers through email content automation<\/h4>\n

Another example we can all relate to comes from supermarket Asda. Instead of 4 generic product offers, customers with a propensity to purchase from a category are automatically shown products from that category that are:<\/p>\n